Doctors Extract Tack from Minor’s Breathing Passages

HERMOSILLO, SONORA, MX – Medical workers remove a tack that had accidentally lodged in the right side of the main bronchi of a 14-year-old boy from Nogales.

Emir Geovany quickly received treatment, and a team of doctors was able to remove the metal tack from his body. Today, Emir is out of danger and recovering.

Sergio Miranda Gallardo, a pediatric pulmonologist and Osvaldo Ramon Miranda Moreno, otorhinolaryngologist, both from the Hospital for Gynecopediatrics (HGP) in Hermosillo, explained that the young man was doing homework and accidentally swallowed the tack, which caused an irritating cough.

He was first checked in the Family Medicine Unit (UMF) but quickly sent to the hospital for specialized care.

The specialists said that it was a team effort, where five anesthesiologists, a pulmonologist, and three nurses participated, all doing their part to remove the object from the child’s body, without hurting his airways.

“In the respiratory system and in the operating room, nothing is spared for a patient, if we had required more things or even more personnel, we would gather everything,” said Miranda Moreno, who noted that when the object was removed it was already oxidizing.

Miranda Gallardo explained that unlike an organic object, metal does not cause as much damage in the airway. The difference is that peanut can cause severe bronchitis in less time, the urgency to remove it is greater, while the tack (metal and plastic), can be removed later without causing damage.

“A laryngeal mask was placed, and through it, we put a probe and the bronchoscope, and we were able to get to the tack; which we found it in the right main bronchi, we grabbed it with the probe and tried to extract it with a clamp, and later we had to use another type of probe to be able to remove it, ’’ said Miranda Moreno.

Simona Soto, mother of the Emir, stressed that the same day they arrived in Hermosillo, she underwent a bronchoscopy and it went very well since that night she was already eating, she then received the news that she could return home the next day.

“The intervention was very smooth, we are already over it in five days, just as Doctor Miranda said. He did not accumulate phlegm or cough or blood, he had nothing; they took really good care of both of us,” said the mother of the young boy.